Brad played his last year of Tiger football this year. He has played for the last 4 years. I wanna back up and say a little bit about my experience as a kid with little league football. I played for the dolphins and the cowboys. My coaches were other guys dads and they treated me pretty good and included me with their kids. But, there was always something missing. Being without a dad I never had that father there to see after the games or to coach me when I was on the team. My mother did a great job trying to be both mom and dad for me but there was still something missing. She would work two jobs and I would have to get a ride home from someone else’s dad. Or I would be waiting for my mom to pick me up and someone’s dad would be waiting with me. Well growing up and having kids I didn’t want that ever to happen to them. So I vowed that any sports or activities my kids are involved in I would be a part of and coach. Now I coached high school football for about 15 years. So when the opportunity came to coach Brad’s TIFI Tigers team I jumped at it. The year before he was old enough I helped coach the age group above him. he was playing soccer at the time and I would drop him off and go coach football then go get him. But I had to do that to guarantee me coaching his team the next year.

So we signed him up and I got a group of guys to help me coach that had kids on the team. There was Steve Mueller, JD Heim, Jimmy Reynolds, Josh Ramirez and Beau Vaughn. I wanted to set a good foundation of fundamentals for Brad and the other boys. I mainly didn’t want a win at all cost attitude but wanted to be successful. That freshman year Brad would make friendships with guys that he is still very good friends with today and I assume will be forever and that makes me very happy. I played him at tight end and outside linebacker. Some people said he was tall so play him quarterback. But there can only be one quarterback and if he plays tight end then he has the ability to block and catch. So depending on what happens when he gets older there are more options for him to play. I played him at outside linebacker because he was so tall and lanky that he couldn’t move as good in space for inside and was too skinny right now to be a defensive lineman. We played that year and were pretty successful and made the playoffs. We had two brothers on our team who Brad is still friends with who are great athletes. They played for us and were very good at whatever position they played. Brad was very smart in his knowledge of football. He got better and better as the year went on. Steve Mueller called the plays and we ran a defense that frustrated me but was successful in TIFI. I ran a 4-3 in high school, but TIFI we needed more guys on the line of scrimmage so we basically ran a 6-3 and would back up the MLB when we needed a safety. Brad really loved playing and was really good. I tried to be as fare as I could when playing players. I would rather have played Brad more on both sides of the ball and looking back maybe I should have but I made up for that his senior year.

Freshman was fun but the season was so long. You have 3 weeks of 6 days a week before you start. It was hard to come up with enough stuff to do in that time period. Plus it was 100 degrees outside.  We made it through that then it went to 3 days a week and a game on saturday. It basically consumed our time with him. But he loved it so it was fun. Like I said we made the playoffs but lost in the first round. The season was over and looking back I enjoy it so much more now than I did then because I was rushing around trying to get practice going and couldn’t just sit back and enjoy watching my son play. I can say now that I can sit back and look at the videos and picture and enjoy those great memories. The sophomore year was much like the freshman. We had basically the same players and coaches. We also had the same type of season. The captains would be picked by number so I didn’t try to play favorites there. I didn’t really coach a specific position. I had coached in high school so I let the other guys coach for me and I managed our time during practice. We got to play our home games in Clyde Abshier stadium here in Deer Park. That sophomore season we played the Falcons in the playoffs. I remember a bunch of bad calls and I even got thrown out because I told the ref “that’s why you don’t referee high school games and are working on saturday morning”. haha!! It was no big deal but I did take a lot of ribbing from the guys at work and other friends. Brad seemed to still love playing. He had begun to watch football on TV and notice who all the players were. It is awesome now because he knows the players on the NFL teams better than I do. At a high school game last year I had our police officer Jack Bounds ask him players names and Brad would repeat where they played. Jack couldnt stump him. Back on subject, sophomore year Brad played same positions and our records for fresh and soph year was like 14-6. We were doing great and the kids were learning. The junior year we lost a few players. Mason Vaughn decided not to play and I hated that. Beau was and is one of my best friends and I enjoyed him and Mason playing and coaching with us, to see him go killed me. But we are still close so that’s ok. Beau quit coaching so I needed to add another. I got Mark Pinnault to help. He was our QB’s dad. Garrett Pinnault was put at QB because he was a mature kid and seemed to have good leadership skills. It worked out great and he played all 4 years there. Junior year was a little different. We started out real strong and won a bunch of games. I think the guys got a little burned out and the epectations on them were very high. The season was very fun and Brad was really coming into his own as a player and a mature young man. We even threw the ball to him more so that made him a big part of the offense. The season ended with another playoff loss. We lost to the Texans who would eventually win the superbowl. It was heartbreaking and I vowed then to play the best players on both sides of the ball. That meant letting Brad play both ways most of the time. I wanted to let him have a great senior experience and also win as much as we could. Those three years were exciting and fun. I want to end this post with these three years. I know it is getting long and I just want you to get the just of his TIFI experience and set the stage for a tremendous memorable senior year.

Here is a pic from freshman year to senior year of Brad and some buddies

Below are Brad’s first three Tiger yearbook pages. You can see how he has grown.

Ya’ll be safe out there!!